Archeaologists Unearth "Ooga!" Document

Fake News written by Dave Finton on Thursday, November 12, 1998

from the reinventing-the-wheel dept.

It was made public today that a 30,000 year old stone tablet titled the "Ooga!" Document had been unearthed along with many other stone tablets from the same era. The Ooga! Document outlines the plans of the then-powerful corporation known as MoogaSooga (to be referred in this article as MS) to challenge and undermine the then-growing hobbyist wheel-making industry. MS at that time owned a virtual monopoly on wheel production, and consumers of that era were clamoring for alternatives to the MS Wheel.

The stone tablet was leaked to one such wheel-making hobbyist referred to as "Eega S. Rooga", or ESR for short. The tablet outlines and researches a wheel-making method where wheel-makers share ideas and contribute their work to make better wheels, and create better tools from those wheels. The tablet also outlines possible actions that MS could take against the wheel-making hobbyists in order to maintain its market share.

The document, authored by MS employee and wheel expert Vooga Voogavoogavoogavooga, talks about the process by how these new wheels were made, and how much better the hobbyists' wheels were than MS's own commercial wheel.

The MS Wheel was a large unwieldly structure approximately 30 feet tall. Users of the wheel would have to climb on top of the wheel and have 75 people behind him or her push the wheel down the hill. The MS Wheel was prone to stalling in mid-transit, causing the passenger to be flung off the top of the wheel to his death on the ground below. In worst case scenarios the MS Wheels were also known to veer off course, often into crowded villages where everyone in the wheel's path would be run down, causing a lot of damage and heartache. In addition to all this the wheel would often break apart into several pieces whenever it hit even the slightest bump. Of course once the wheel reached a valley or the bottom of the hill, it would be impossible to push it back up the hill again because it was way too heavy. Thus, users of the MS Wheel were often forced to "upgrade" to a new wheel, most likely even larger and less stable than the previous one.

Despite these and other problems, the MS Wheel was immensely popular. However, it sparked a populist movement by amature wheel makers to share ideas and come up with a better solution.

In the "Ooga!" Tablet, Vooga says, "After trying out these hobbyists' wheels, I am surprised to learn that their quality surpasses the quality of commercial-grade wheels, particularly the MS Wheel." He goes on to say, "These wheels are only a couple of feet in diameter, weigh only 30 pounds, and are much sturdier than our heavyweight counterparts. Even worse, the hobbyists are using these wheels to create even more complicated yet useful structures, such as carts and wagons. Our wheels couldn't even hope to compete in that market!"

In one of the other stone tablets found during the dig, a pundit and long-time MS supporter named Jooba Berst wrote down "These new wheels will never be taken seriously in the marketplace. Who are you going to sue or hold accountable when the wheel breaks down and kills several hundred villagers-- woah WOAH-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" *THUD*!

Vooga himself refuted those claims within the "Ooga!" Document itself: "Since these wheels are small, the chances of them running over and killing helpless villagers are extremely low. In addition to this, the wheels are skinny enough to allow what is known as 'steering' to avoid veering off course to begin with. And in the unlikely possibility of a wheel breakdown, the wheel can be easily fixed or replaced with a new one relatively cheaply."

Since MS was a large and powerful corporation, surely it must have had some kind of strategy against the hobbyist wheel-makers. Indeed, Vooga stated, "These hobbyists are unabashedly cream-skinning the best features of MS Wheel, such as the fact that it is round and is capable of rolling down hills." The solution? "The possibilities of clubbing the hobbyists to death or simply stealing their wheels have yet to be looked at."